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Rutgers University Press launches a new book series: Inequality at Work: Perspectives on Race, Gender, Class, and Labor

Announcement published by Peter Mickulas on Friday, July 21, 2017

Type:

Call for Publications

Location:

United States

Subject Fields:

Sociology, Social Sciences, Race Studies, Labor History / Studies

Inequality at Work: Perspectives on Race, Gender, Class, and Labor

Rutgers University Press

Book Series Announcement

Series Editor: Enobong Hannah Branch, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Scholars disagree about the role that race and gender play in the labor market. On the one hand, they argue that gender and race fundamentally structure labor market opportunity, contributing to growing inequality. Yet others contend that while race and gender may be interconnected categories, they do not definitively affect labor market opportunity in the long term. This disconnect results from the fact that the study of work and labor and the analysis of the impacts of race, gender, and class often proceed on parallel tracks. The intersection of race and gender shapes the life chances of all workers, affording some privileges and others disadvantages that shape labor market behavior – including failures, detours, and successes. The occupational structure is a key location where racial and gender differences are transformed into class inequality, as well as a mechanism by which racial and gender inequality persist. Yet, the uneven distribution of workers across occupations and the grouping of racial/ethnic minorities and women in undesirable places is not comprehensively told.

This new book series on Inequality at Work: Perspectives on Race, Gender, Class, and Labor will provide a platform for cultivating and disseminating scholarship that deepens our knowledge of the social understandings and implications of work, particularly scholarship that joins empirical investigations with social analysis, cultural critique and historical perspectives. We are especially interested in books that center on the experiences of marginalized workers; that explore the mechanisms (e.g., state or organizational policy) that cause occupational inequality to grow and become entrenched over time; that show us how workers make sense of and articulate their constraints as well as resist them; and have particular timeliness and/or social significance. Prospective topics might include books about migrant labor, rising economic insecurity, enduring gender inequality, public and private sector divisions, glass ceilings (gender limitations at work) and concrete walls (racial limitations at work), or racial/gender identity at work in the Black Lives Matter era.

About the Editor

Enobong Hannah Branch is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. Her research interests are in race, racism, and inequality; intersectional theory; work and occupations; and diversity in science. Her book Opportunity Denied: Limiting Black Women to Devalued Work (2011, Rutgers University Press) provides an overview of the historical evolution of Black women’s work and the social-economic structures that have located them in particular and devalued places in the U.S. labor market. She is also the editor of Pathways, Potholes, and the Persistence of Women in Science: Reconsidering the Pipeline (2016, Lexington Press) as well as the author of several articles published in The Sociological Quarterly; Sociological Perspectives; Social Science History; Journal of Black Studies; and Race, Gender, & Class.

Inquiries

Authors interested in contributing to this book series should send an extended abstract of no more than 2 pages to Enobong Hannah Branch at ebranch@umass.edu and Peter Mickulas at mickulas@press.rutgers.edu for consideration.